The invention concerns a method for organising the flow of goods for a horizontally layered and deep-stacked stock of goods with heterogeneous units, together with equipment for transfer and continuous registration of standardised containers used in the implementation of the invention.
In a trade organisation which purchases a multiplicity of units of heterogeneous form, size and weight for storage and sells different types and numbers of units from this store to customers, a methodical organisation of the location of the units in the store is required in order to facilitate the flow of goods.
This is necessary in order to be able to keep a stock adapted to sales, so that the number of the individual units in the stock is adapted to suit the expected sales.
Furthermore, it is desirable that the goods should be placed within physically easy access in order to facilitate selection, and so that rolling of the stock can be implemented.
Some stores collect the most sold goods in groups near packing tables and the like in order to reduce internal movement.
With the steady increase in the use of data technology each individual item is monitored, with the result that the physical location will be determined and altered with every new consignment which is purchased.
Moreover, each individual unit can be marked with bar codes which are read mechanically for retrieval and checking, both during dispatch and inventory and during the customer""s receipt check.
Retrieval is normally conducted by staff moving through the store""s network of access passageways with, e.g., trucks or collecting vehicles. On the basis of selection lists, based on customer orders, and which are edited according to the position of the different units in the store, the units are then collected which form part of the individual order for packing and dispatch.
Various forms of automation of such stores, especially for retrieval of units from such a store, are previously known. U.S. Pat. No. 5,147,176 discloses such an automated storage system where units are given a random location, and where a computer program keeps continuous track of the position of the individual units. This system further comprises storage shelves where the stored units are placed in boxes. Between the storage shelves there are access passages, and cranes or hoist devices transfer the storage boxes to vehicles which transport them to a packing station or the like.
Another example is described in EP 767 113, which discloses a robot system for locating or removing units to and from a store. The units are stacked vertically, and the robot has a gripping device which can lift units vertically to remove them from the stack.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,340,262 describes a data based storage system which utilizes bar code marking of ingoing goods which are placed in standard pallet storage shelves, without the goods being related to their physical location.
EP 0 217 757 describes an automatic transfer device for goods from a storage place to a handling place.
NO 163276 describes sorting and holding store equipment for goods which are continuously coming from production in a bakery and which have to be packed in boxes according to individual customer orders, standard boxes being sequentially transferred from each packing station via customer stations to delivery stations.
Production and trading companies often have substantial storage space requirements, and it is essential to be able to make the most effective use possible of available space. The object of the present invention is to provide a utilization of space which far surpasses that which is achieved according to the previously known solutions, both with regard to exploitation of floor area and vertical stacking. Furthermore it is in an object to provide a highly effective facility for access to stored goods together with rolling of stored goods.
An organisation""s storage requirements are closely associated with the requirements for accessibility.
Direct physical access to the individual and oldest unit in stock is necessary and crucial for an effective handling and rolling of the units in the stock, and this normally has to be considered when introducing new units and, for example, selection when dispatching orders.
Heterogeneous units cannot normally be deep-stacked, i.e. stacked on top of one another or close to one another in the same shelf or on the same pallet. Sufficient space must therefore be allocated in the individual shelf to the number of units which will be present when the store is full. If maximum stock requires space for a pallet with, e.g., 48 units of a given unit-which, for example, may correspond to one month""s sale- and order estimates are based on the assumption that new goods will arrive, e.g., ten days before an empty or sold-out situation arises, together with the fact that a purchase unit is a whole pallet, two pallet places must be allocated in the store.
Other factors which create space requirements are the staffs need for physical access to the individual and first-incoming item. Through-going access passageways must be laid out for trucks, parcel trolleys and the like, and these often also have to be allowed two-way traffic, which more than doubles the width of the access ways.
Calculations of actual volume utilization for modern wholesale stores where the staff require access to the stored units show a utilization factor of only 15-20%.
When developing a traditional store of this kind, only raw goods producers and some industrial stores with a small number of types of goods and relatively few but major deliveries to a small number of customers can afford to deep-stack, i.e. to stack homogeneous articles on top of one another and close to one another in a collective stack. A store of this kind provides a greater utilization factor, but no access to the individual item.
The necessary requirement for stock organisation and the above-mentioned and further objects are achieved by means of a method which is characterized by what is stated in the claims.